Discursive Deflection: Accusation of “Fake News” and the Spread of Mis- and Disinformation in the Tweets of President TrumpDiscursive Deflection: Accusation of “Fake News” and the Spread of Mis- and Disinformation in the Tweets of President Trump

Ross, A.S. and Rivers, D.J. (2018). Discursive Deflection: Accusation of “Fake News” and the Spread of Mis- and Dis-Information in the Tweets of President Trump. Social Media + Society. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2056305118776010Twitter is increasingly being used within the sociopolitical domain as a channel through which to circulate information
and opinions. Throughout the 2016 US Presidential primaries and general election campaign, a notable feature was the
prolific Twitter use of Republican candidate and then nominee, Donald Trump. This use has continued since his election
victory and inauguration as President. Trump’s use of Twitter has drawn criticism due to his rhetoric in relation to various
issues, including Hillary Clinton, the size of the crowd in attendance at his inauguration, the policies of the former Obama
administration, and immigration and foreign policy. One of the most notable features of Trump’s Twitter use has been his
repeated ridicule of the mainstream media through pejorative labels such as “fake news” and “fake media.” These labels
have been deployed in an attempt to deter the public from trusting media reports, many of which are critical of Trump’s
presidency, and to position himself as the only reliable source of truth. However, given the contestable nature of objective
truth, it can be argued that Trump himself is a serial offender in the propagation of mis- and disinformation in the same vein
that he accuses the media. This article adopts a corpus analysis of Trump’s Twitter discourse to highlight his accusations
of fake news and how he operates as a serial spreader of mis- and disinformation. Our data show that Trump uses these
accusations to demonstrate allegiance and as a cover for his own spreading of mis- and disinformation that is framed as truth.

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